Farmers who raise grain crops often have need for storage facilities for their grain. It has been very common for farmers to build and maintain permanent building structures for this purpose. The cost of such structures is high and the lack of sufficient storage space can result in a farmer having to sell his grain crop prematurely at a significant loss in revenue.
A similar problem was addressed some years ago for cattle or dairy farmers having to store silage used to feed cattle, e.g., in the winter. In a manner similar to grain storage, huge permanent structures called silos were commonplace on dairy and cattle farms. However, the cattle farmer was provided with a solution. A method of storing silage in large plastic bags was developed as well as the equipment for accomplishing the new storage method. A movable machine with a feed rotor and a huge folded plastic bag feeds silage to the rotor and the rotor compacts the silage into the bag. The plastic storage bags can be up to 12 feet in diameter and as much as 250 feet in length. The bag unfolds from the machine as the machine moves away from the bag in response to filling of the bag. The unfolding or extension of the bag and the movement of the machine must be controlled to insure proper filling of the bag. This is accomplished by a stop positioned behind the bag to prevent rearward sliding and by a brake mechanism adjusted to resistively yield in response to the pressure that is created as the rotor compresses the silage against the stop, i.e., the machine is pushed forward by force feeding the silage into the bag and against the stop. The force required to move the machine against the resistance of the brake is established as that force required to satisfactorily fill the bag.
Numerous patent disclosures have addressed this concept. Representative of these patents are U.S. Pat. No. 3,687,061 (Eggenmuller), U.S. Pat. No. 4,046,068 (Eggenmuller), U.S. Pat. No. Re 31,810 (Lee) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,805 (Johnson, et al).
This process works well for silage but is almost useless for filling a pliable plastic bag with grain. Rotor teeth used to force feed silage into the bag simply slide through the more fluid-like grain particles. Various feed mechanisms were tried for grain, but none were found satisfactory.
Advancements in agricultural technology directed towards improved crop storage apparatus and methods do not always find practice throughout all regions of the world. Many regions are capable of producing and using advanced agricultural machinery and thereby take advantage of current agricultural innovations. In many other regions, however, such advanced machinery is not available, yet the need for crop storage is enormous. In such other regions, use of advanced crop storage methods can greatly enhance the efficient use of locally grown crops. Unfortunately, advanced crop storage methods and apparatus have not been available due to either an inability to produce or affordably acquire such advanced apparatus, or due to prohibitive shipping costs for such apparatus. Generally, the cost of manufacture and shipping of such apparatus prohibits wide spread use in distant regions, i.e., regions distant from the point of manufacture and requiring overseas shipping from the point of manufacture. Accordingly, it is desirable that advanced agricultural storage methods and apparatus be adapted to allow for economically feasible acquisition by farming concerns in remote regions of the world.
Even on a local level, i.e., local relative to a region where advanced crop storage apparatus are manufactured, there exists a need for more wide spread availability and use of advanced crop storage apparatus. For example, many small farming concerns would benefit by the use of advanced crop storage apparatus, but cannot afford such apparatus due to the heretofore large scale implementation of such apparatus driving the cost of feasible acquisition and use beyond the capabilities of the small farming concern. In many farming communities, large crop storage apparatus are not well suited for effective use because of the inability of such apparatus to accommodate the needs of the various small farming concerns in the community. For example, such large crop storage apparatus are built for specific storage bag diameters, without an ability to accept variation in storage bag diameter. Each small farming concern may require, however, variation in the size of crop storage bags. It is not economically feasible for such farming communities to share multiple large scale crop bagging apparatus, one for each size of bag used in the community. Also, in such communal use of bagging machines, the machine should be capable of convenient transportation between members of the community. Thus, it is desirable that a crop storage apparatus be easily transportable along conventional roadways and be adaptable to accommodate storage bags of various diameter. In this manner, one or several such crop storage apparatus may be used collectively in a small farming community, yet satisfy all the various needs of the members of the community.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a bagging machine more economically available and more easily transported, including local transport between small farming concerns and international transport by overseas shipping to remote regions of the world.